The Trickster Caught
by Dragonhulk
Summary: Just a short little story to complement Shadow Master’s “The Trickster in Me”


The Trickster Freed

The Trickster Caught

Disclaimer: I own nothing that you will see in these writings. Not even the plot is mine this time, it belongs to Shadow Master.

Summary: Just a short little story to complement Shadow Master's "The Trickster in Me"

AN: You can see Shadow Master's work at Twisting the Hellmouth or FFnet .net/u/119393/Shadow_Master

The short story that I'm biasing this off of is this one is The Trickster in Me. You can find it in Dreams and Ideas chapter 4, or just follow this link .net/s/3074476/4/Dreams_and_Ideas

***

"Mr. Harris, could you stay after class for a few minutes?" asked Ms. Rice as soon as the bell rang.

"Yeah, sure thing," said Xander with an impending sense of doom, a sense of doom that increased as the triplets that had just transferred into the school also stayed behind. Now he may have had quite a few dreams that started out with a sexy teacher keeping him after class, and a few of them even involved hot triplets, but he doubted that what he was going to experience in the next few moments would be nearly as enjoyable.

As soon as the last student left Ms. Rice locked the door with a simple wave of her hand, completely ignoring the fact that she was at least fifteen feet from said door. The inhuman nature of the four women became even more apparent as they all began to shimmer, taking on new forms.

"Titania," said Xander in greeting as the teacher turned into a green skinned woman with long pointed ears wearing something that could be best described as a cross between medieval garb and something that would be found on a member of an Arabic harem.

"Phoebe, Seline, Luna," Xander said as he nodded to the honey blond, raven haired, and white haired triplet respectively. That was all he was able to get out though because as soon as he said the last name all three hit him with some kind of magical energy and a silver mist erupted from his mouth.

The mist hovered for a few moments before it formed into the well known elfin features of Puck, the Child of Oberon that Xander had dressed as on Halloween. This surprised Xander somewhat because neither he nor Puck had considered that they were really this separate. Then again neither of them had thought that Titania and the Weird Sisters were anything more than cartoon characters so it seemed like everything was out the window now.

"Puck," said Titania in much the same tone Xander used when he greeted everyone.

"My Lady," said Puck in a respectful tone as he executed a formal bow. Then in the same tone he turned to the sisters and said, "Screeching Harpies."

"Um Puck, as interesting as your family dynamics are, could you not insult the insanely powerful women until I'm out of the blast radius?" asked Xander as he nervously watched the magical energy crackle off of the sisters.

"Oh they're dangerous together I'll grant you, but separated they're no worse than any other member of the fey race," said Puck in a completely unconcerned voice.

"So only semi-phenomenal nearly-cosmic then?" asked Xander unable to resist the line, even if it would be better for his health if he could.

"Precisely," said Puck, an inhumanly large grin on his face as he got the movie reference aimed towards his biological sisters.

"If you two are quite finished," said Titania as an aura of power and anger began to build around her. "I think it's time that we discuss just why you decided to leave my grandson without a proper teacher or guardian Puck."

"Circumstances beyond my control I'm afraid, my lady," said Puck, once again being formal and polite. "A few weeks ago this young man decided to dress as me for Halloween, forever proving his superior taste. What he didn't know was that a chaos mage of considerable skill, if not power, had enchanted every costume he sold so that each child would become what they dressed as for one night."

Titania simply raised an eyebrow when it looked like Puck had finished as if daring him to say that was the end of the story. Having known the fey for well over a thousand years she felt safe in assuming that he was holding something back.

"You're probably wondering why I didn't try and return once the spell ended, aren't you?" asked Puck, causing Titania to nod. "Well I'm blaming that on the chaos magic myself. Until the four of you came along I was convinced that I was nothing more than a fictional creation brought to life through magic."

"And I'm supposed to believe that the fact that you are no longer bound by Oberon's laws didn't influence your decisions in the slightest?"

"I'm free of Oberon's restrictions here? I must tell you that I haven't noticed before now," said Puck with a truly innocent expression on his face. It was a complete lie though and everyone in the room knew it, still an actor was expected to give his best performance to the most unmoving crowd.

"I'm sure," Titania stated in a tone that clearly carried her disbelief. "Your reasons don't matter now anyway, it's time for you to return home Puck."

"As my lady desires," said Puck in a resigned tone, knowing there was no way he could escape from the combined powers of his sisters and Titania. Oh who was he kidding, at best he could hope to trick Titania if she had come alone, bringing his sisters was serious overkill.

Xander didn't know what to do. In the time that he and Puck had shared a body he had come to consider the trickster a friend, and he didn't want him to leave. However, short of ringing an iron bell, he didn't know how to defeat the four powerful women that had come to take Puck away.

"And what of this one Lady Titania?" asked Luna as she bent down and brushed away some of Xander's hair, revealing a pointed Vulcan like ear.

"Hmm, it would seem that the chaos magic gave him at least a touch of fey blood," said Titania as she examined Xander. "Interesting, while he is at least part fey he isn't a child of Oberon."

"At least not our Oberon Lady Titania," said Puck as he began to examine this new riddle. "Shakespeare still wrote his play in this world however, so perhaps we have counterparts."

"Perhaps, but this doesn't change the fact that you need to return to our world and protect Alexander. The most I can do for him is bring him to our world where you may teach him along with my grandson."

"Wait, a second here. As much as traveling to another dimension would fulfill a lot of my geek fantasies, I can't just leave my friends."

"If you remain here without training, you will eventually go mad and kill your friends. Untrained fey tend to react poorly to demonic energies like the Hellmouth if exposed for too long. Even though you are not exactly like us, you are similar enough that the energies of a Hellmouth should have the same effect, given enough time."

"So basically I'm screwed."

"I wouldn't have put it quite so bluntly, but yes. Because of that chaos mage you need to learn about your powers, and your fey heritage. It will take years, perhaps even decades of training before you can live on a Hellmouth as active as this one."

"But, because we're crossing dimensions I can come back to the same moment I left, because I would be outside the space and time of this universe, right?" asked Xander, grasping at any straw that his science fiction infected mind could imagine.

Titania smiled and said, "All things are possible with magic child, one simply needs the correct combination of power and imagination. I believe you may have the imagination, but you'll need to train to bring out your true power."

"Okay," said Xander. Truth was he didn't really believe he had the power. From what he remembered from the cartoon, the only thing that came close do doing what he described was the Phoenix Gate, and that was supposed to be rare and powerful enough that even someone like Oberon could be bribed with it. Still, slim hope and going was better than staying and killing his friends.

Titania and the sisters didn't say anything more; they simply formed a circle and forced their magical energy into a small point between them. Crossing dimensions in an orderly fashion was always difficult, even for the fey. It required a large amount of magical energy to be focused with laser like precision until the wall separating dimensions was breached, and then for the hole to be expanded. For one average fey the process could take hours and leave him or her exhausted, but with four highly powerful fey working together it took under a minute and none of them were even breathing hard.

"It's finished," said Luna as the portal stabilized.

"Guess I should change before we go back to daddy Oberon," said Puck with a sigh as he changed his form and personality from Puck the Trickster to Owen Burnett.

"Come along Alexander, there is no reason to delay our departure."

"One reason," said Xander as he quickly grabbed a pen and paper, scribbling down a goodbye note to explain to his friends where he had gone and why. Then he nervously walked through the open portal, towards an entirely new life.


End file.
